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Moshe Landau, chief judge in 1961 Adolf Eichmann trial, dies at 99

May 1, 2011 | 4:43
pm

Moshe Landau, chief judge in the 1961 trial of Nazi arch-criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, died Sunday in Jerusalem on the eve of the annual memorial day for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the government said. He was 99.

Landau was an Israeli Supreme Court justice when he was picked to head the three-judge panel for the Eichmann trial. Eichmann, who was in charge of the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe, was kidnapped from Argentina in 1960 by Israel's Mossad spy agency. He was convicted and hanged.

Landau was an accomplished jurist by the time of the Eichmann trial. Born in Danzig, Germany, in 1912, he studied law at the University of London and moved to Palestine in 1933, 15 years before the state of Israel was created.

He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1953. In 1980, he was named chief justice, retiring in 1982. He was given the Israel Prize, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1991.